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With different orchestras, Andreas Delfs has presented a few festivals devoted to single composers.
“Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky are all popular, but only a Beethoven Festival is guaranteed to sell out a hall,” says Delfs, music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
That certainly is the hope of the RPO and Delfs for the last two weekends in October, when the orchestra will offer what Delfs calls a “massive onslaught of Beethoven.” Or more soberly put, a Beethoven Festival: a dozen masterpieces by the world’s most popular composer in four different concerts. Each comprises an overture, a concerto, and a symphony by Beethoven.
The music may be (mostly) familiar, but the festival programs have been carefully planned by Delfs. The soloists also have been carefully chosen; all of them are favorites with the RPO and its audiences.
For the opening night, Oct. 23, Jonathan Biss plays the Second Piano Concerto. Oct. 25 brings the Triple Concerto with RPO concertmaster Juliana Athayde; first cellist Ahrim Kim; and pianist Chiao-Wen Cheng.The second weekend kicks off on Oct. 30 with the Violin Concerto featuring Benjamin Beilman, who recently debuted here with the Benjamin Britten concerto. It winds up on Nov. 1 with a favorite RPO guest, Jon Nakamatsu, in the First Piano Concerto.
One work in the festival is not quite as ubiquitous as the others.
“The Triple Concerto was actually on our audience wish list, which was a bit of a surprise,” says Delfs. He describes this elegant Beethoven rarity as “a joyous, wonderfully constructed work,” and adds that no guest soloists were considered: “With Juliana, Ahrim, and Chiao-Wen, we already had a ‘Triple Concerto Dream Team’ to play it.”
Despite the musical delights in Beethoven’s concertos and overtures, it’s a safe bet that the biggest audience draws in this festival will be four of Beethoven’s most popular symphonies: Nos. 3 (the “Eroica”), 5, 6 (the “Pastoral”), and 7. “Iconic” has become a trite adjective, but if any music deserves the description, it’s these symphonies. They’re two centuries old and still going strong.
What accounts for the perpetual popularity of Beethoven’s music? Delfs finds inexhaustible depth and weight in works like the “Eroica” Symphony; they reflect not only the numerous tragedies in the composer’s life, especially his deafness at an early age, but also his single-minded devotion to his craft and art.
“For example, in the slow movement of the Seventh Symphony: each of the variations is so beautifully orchestrated, and its structure is perfect,” Delfs says. “But I listen to this sublime music and then remember that he never could hear it.”
He also admires Beethoven’s ability to write music, like the finales of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, that is “jubilant forever, full of a joyous, all-embracing optimism. His message is simply ‘Never give up!’ despite whatever curveballs life may throw.”
Beethoven’s Fifth, with its indelible opening motto, is probably the most famous of all his symphonies—or probably the most famous symphony, period. A torrent of musical energy, it’s perhaps the most demanding for the musicians playing it.
“It’s a marathon,” says Delfs. “A complete performance of the Fifth leaves me breathless. The last movement goes on and on and builds and builds—10 minutes of jubilance.”
Nakamatsu admits, “I’d do any of the Beethoven piano concertos at the drop of a hat,” but this will be his first performance of the First Concerto in several years.
Nakamatsu has been a popular soloist here since his RPO debut in 1999, shortly after winning the Van Cliburn Competition. Nakamatsu and Rochester musicians immediately clicked, and he has returned frequently for concerto, solo, and chamber music appearances, as well as recordings of Rachmaninoff and Gershwin with the RPO.
“When I’m here, there’s never a free moment,” Nakamatsu says. “Certain places become meaningful to you, and I consider the RPO part of my musical family.
“It’s an exuberant piece, fun to play,” he says of the First Piano Concerto (which is actually Beethoven’s second; No. 2 came first but was published second). “Beethoven was a composer-pianist, and this is definitely written for the audience to enjoy. But even in this early work, as a performer he is appealing to his audience, but as a composer, he also wants to challenge them.”
This concerto is sometimes compared to Mozart, Nakamatsu says.
“It is a classically perfect piece—but it’s pushing the envelope, too, more episodic and fragmentary than Mozart. Occasionally Beethoven throws in something just for a little shock,” he says. “In the middle of the finale, for example, the piano suddenly starts playing a catchy, samba-like tune.”
When Nakamatsu is asked if he ever tires of Beethoven, his answer is quick: “No! I am lucky to play such wondrous, jaw-dropping, inspiring music. As a composer, he constantly reinvents himself in front of you.”
Apropos of Beethoven’s infinite variety, Delfs quotes the choral conductor Robert Shaw on Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis,” to the effect that “the challenge of performing it is impossible … but the impossibility is the point!”
“I’ve never placed a Beethoven score before an orchestra and had the reaction, ‘Oh, that again?’” says Delfs. “Audiences and musicians can never get enough of it.”
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra presents its Beethoven Festival on Oct. 23, 25, and 30 and Nov. 1 at Kodak Hall. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m. For full program and ticket ordering details, go to rpo.org.
David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
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